British-born Hollywood director Tony Scott (brother of fellow filmmaker Ridley) died this past Sunday when he jumped from a bridge in Los Angeles. We didn’t know the man so we can remember him only through some of our favorite moments that he directed on the screen (well, at least, our favorite sex-related moments)…

Every week there are dozens of film news stories. Every week, we read them all and bring you the five most important ones in the single most important blog post you’ll ever read (today [at this moment]). This week: the aliens return, a great author exits, and a new trailer has us chained to our computer screens.

Every week there are dozens of film news stories. Every week, we read them all and bring you the five most important ones in the single most important blog post you’ll ever read (today [at this moment]). This week: the world ends, the road to Cannes begins, and the Avengers get slapped with a hulking clean-up bill.

On December 1, Quentin Tarantino will get roasted by a bunch of inglourious so-and-sos at New York’s Hilton hotel, and I’m betting big bucks he’ll be a totally broken man, ready for the human trash heap, by the end of it. After all, Friars roasts are those splashy affairs where costars, comics, and “friends” take the podium to decimate you with personally attained humor and hilarious potshots gleefully derived at your superstar expense.

Lady Gaga ascension to pop’s super stardom was cemented even more last week with the debut of her video “Telephone,” a nine minute movie honoring Quentin Tarantino and homicide. It also stars Beyonce who adopts the curious wardrobe and dance moves of Gaga. After watching, many were left repulsed. Many more, inspired. One such Gaga-inspired…

1) Starting the show with the 10 lead acting nominees having to take the stage and smile for the cameras. Doesn’t the rest of the evening torture them enough?

2) The clips for the 10, count ‘em 10, Best Picture nominees. Add them up and they were longer than some of the films themselves! Besides, way back in 1939, the 10 nominees were instant classics like Gone With The Wind, Stagecoach, and The Wizard of Oz. But this year? The Blind Side and District 9! Let’s go back to just five. No, make it three!

3) The way the cameras kept zooming in on the front runners right after they lost. When THE HURT LOCKER won Best Original Screenplay, they closed in on a shaken Quentin Tarantino. After PRECIOUS bagged Best Adapted Screenplay, they cut to a sweaty Jason Reitman. Even when AVATAR lost some sound award, they cut to Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington. This practice totally appealed to the sadist in me, but for the sake of others with some heart, let’s only watch people squirm before they lose from now on.

I’m in my hometown of Cave Creek, Arizona prepping a short film, and since my parents have internet service dating back to the dial-up Pleistocene, I’ve been seeking alternative media outlets. (A shock to one’s internet-addicted system, for sure.)

One pure joy, and happily corresponding with my immediate need to don the director’s hat, is listening to Elvis Mitchell’s radio show on movies, popular art and entertainment, “The Treatment” on KCRW.com. I’m listening to pod casts of show after show after show, walking the rural desert streets, watching big trucks with horse trailers fly past me … and fast. Elvis’s soft voice in my ear, guiding me through ways in which to think about contemporary movie making, is the perfect companion on the road.

It was about midway through the opening titles when I stopped taking INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS seriously. Why does Tarantino insist on changing the font half a dozen times? More legitimate problems with the film itself arose after a promising opening scene (with Christoph Waltz, whose ability to pull off an SS officer fresh from a Hollywood backlot speaks to his talent as an actor) when Brad Pitt saunters onscreen as Basterd-leader Aldo Raine. Raine maintains a look of constipation throughout the entire film, but what is supposed to be a cocky smirk, along with a thick Tennessee accent (funny!) and a scar that wraps around his neck, is all the backstory we get on him and his eight Jewish minions, and it’s hardly enough to give them and their killing spree any credibility. They remain strangers; All we’re able to grasp about them is their brutality.

Entertainment blogger and film critic, Harry Knowles created the website Ain’t It Cool News [www.aintitcool.com] in 1996. The site was quickly recognized for its colorful movie reviews and its wealth of insider news. Due to the popularity, or perhaps the notoriety, of the website, Knowles was sought out by the mainstream media, including magazines, newspapers,…

IN BRUGES, the opening night film for this year’s Sundance Film Festival, played to two packed houses at the Eccles Theater last night. In some ways, a film made by the Irish playwright Martin McDonagh about hit men in an old Belgium town might seem to set an incongruous note for America’s premier independent film festival. But the rough and tumble play of blazing guns, high-swearing dialogue and squirting blood pays a worthy tribute to how Sundance and its filmmakers — such as, indie action directors like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino – have influenced global culture.